We won’t get to break out the fancy china and light all the sparkly candles from our holiday decorations boxes, but a group of lovely ladies will invite you over to our online “homes” each week from now until mid-December for a progressive dinner, real food style.
We’d like to share our favorite holiday and for-a-crowd recipes with you, from appetizers to desserts, and we’d love it if you would link up your own favorites (new or old posts) as we move from hostess to hostess, course to course.
Whole Foods for the Holidays: Your Hostesses
October 19 – Wardeh from GNOWFGLINS starts us off with soup
October 26 – We’re here at Kitchen Stewardship next week for your favorite appetizer
November 2 – Donielle tosses the salad down the road at Naturally Knocked Up
November 9 – Enjoy wonderful bread dishes with Diana from A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa
November 16 – Main dishes will be served at Keeper of the Home with Stephanie
November 23 – Extra side dishes are always a must! Join Kimi at The Nourishing Gourmet
November 30 – Kate at Modern Alternative Mama hosts our week on desserts
December 7 – Drinks will be served at Frugal Granola with Michele
Our fearless leader and overall party hostess is Donielle at Naturally Knocked Up. She’ll update the carnivals HERE.
Soup’s On!
Nothing is more warming than a hot bowl of soup on a chilly day, nothing more nourishing than bone broth, in any form.
We eat soup once or twice a week, sometimes more, in the fall and winter months. I’ve been wanting to share this one for quite some time now.
My black bean soup recipe is a melding of this one from allrecipes.com and Rachel Ray’s. I didn’t love some of the veggies (celery) in Rachel’s version, and I did love the seasonings in the allrecipes.com version. A little here, a little there, and voila! A simple, vegetable-laden, meatless or chicken stock based soup that we could eat once a week. Some of the beans and veggies are pureed, so it’s kid-friendly to boot.
| Black Bean Soup Recipe |
- 1-2 Tbs oil (extra virgin olive or coconut oil)
- 1 chopped onion
- 1 chopped red pepper
- 2-3 cloves minced garlic
- 1 chopped jalapeno (to taste)
- 3 carrots, chopped or sliced
- 1-2 tsp. chili powder
- 2 tsp-1 Tbs ground cumin
- 4 cups homemade chicken stock (or use the “broth” from cooking dry beans, with or without adding extra veggies for flavor)
- 3 cans or ~6 cups cooked black beans
- 1 15-oz. can (or home canned pint) diced or whole tomatoes
- 1 cup frozen corn (optional)
- 1/4 tsp ground pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt, if using unsalted broth
- In a large pot, heat oil over medium and cook onion and peppers for a few minutes until soft.
- Mince garlic 5-10 minutes before adding to pot for best nutrition.
- Add garlic, carrots, and all spices and cook and stir for one minute.
- Pour in the broth, 2 cups (or 1 can) of beans, corn and pepper.
- Bring to a boil.
- The can of tomatoes and remaining beans need to be pureed before adding to the pot. I like to do this in the can or jar with my stick blender, but a food processor or blender works well too.
- Add to the pot, and once everything is boiling, reduce the heat to low.
- Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the carrots are tender.
- New option: I tried adding 2/3 of the beans to the pot along with the tomatoes, then blending everything right in the pot with my stick blender. I added the final two cups of beans whole. The resulting soup is not as appetizing to look at, but the taste is the same and more vegetables were pureed, so more got past the kid-meter.
Serves at least 8. Easy to double!
Cost: $3-4 for the whole pot, under 50 cents a serving.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream or guacamole on top and some shredded cheese to pass at the table.
Our favorite side for this Mexi-style soup is cheese quesadillas on homemade whole wheat tortillas. They make the best dippers! Crunchy tortillas chips also go perfectly next to the black bean soup, and there’s nothing wrong with a simple piece of sourdough toast (check out my honey whole wheat sourdough bread, last week’s instructional video in the GNOWFGLINS sourdough eCourse).
Can I just say that I was thrilled to get our legumes back after going no-grains whole hog, and this soup was the first dish I made? Yum.
Please visit Wardeh for many more SOUP recipes, and do enjoy the first course in Whole Foods for the Holidays: a Real Food Progressive Dinner.
Note: You may want to hop in this week’s giveaway to win a real food cookbook for normal foods like french fries, pizza, pancakes and more.
———————————————
I’d love to see more of you! Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.
If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.
Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
See my full disclosure statement here.
This post is part of
I think I know what we’re going to have for dinner tonight (thanks to some canned black beans) Thank you!
Looking forward to trying this!
[Reply to this comment]
Katie Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Kara,
Katie
It’s kind of crazy that I could share a recipe and people are putting it on their table that very night! The Internet makes me grin sometimes…
[Reply to this comment]
Kara Fleck Reply:
October 24th, 2010 at 6:52 am
Yes, the internet is pretty great for things like that
Wanted to add that we LOVED it and two out of three kids emptied their bowls – which, at our house, is a pretty major accomplishment. Getting to eat their soup w/ tortilla chips was a pretty good “sell” point too LOL
Thanks!
[Reply to this comment]
This soup sounds yummy! I will have to try it soon. One question for you, I hope you can help- for the past several weeks I have been unable to connect to Wardeh’s site, either directly or by clicking on a link from someone’s blog. I can’t connect using your link to her either. Is it just my computer connection or are others experiencing this? I thought maybe she changed domains, but that doesn’t explain the link not taking me there. Ideas?
[Reply to this comment]
Katie Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 3:20 pm
MaryEllen,
I just tried the links myself and had no problem…that is so very odd. I’ll email Wardeh and see if she has had anyone else say that. She didn’t change domains, but she did add some security, only to the eCourse sections though. Best, Katie
[Reply to this comment]
This is timely. We had a good crop of black turtle beans, which I’ve been busy shelling. We love black bean soup but I don’t have a recipe yet. I’ll definitely try yours.
[Reply to this comment]
This looks great Katie, thanks. I’m soaking black beans tonight for a bean soup with cheddar cornmeal muffins cooked right in but will try this soon.
[Reply to this comment]
Just found your blog it is FANTASTIC!
[Reply to this comment]
Katie Reply:
October 21st, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Thanks, Jan! Welcome! Looks like you’re doing some great big changes at your house, too. What a neat blog idea!
Katie
[Reply to this comment]
Links I’ve Liked – 10/22 « A Well-Armed Laura Ingalls Wilder // Oct 22, 2010 at 11:00 pm
[...] – Black Bean Soup [...]
I made this black bean soup for my family yesterday and it was a big hit! My husband and I put our crushed tortilla chips in our bowls with the cheese and loved the sour cream on top. I crumbled up some corn muffin and mixed in soup to make a mush my 20-month-old can pick up with her spoon. She eats it up!
And just in case anyone’s wondering about variations, it’s very tasty even without bell pepper and jalapeno (which I omit from everything due to personal aversion). And we doubled the corn because we love it in soup.
[Reply to this comment]
I just made this soup last night and is it was AMAZING! My picky 5 year old tried it reluctantly and ended up loving it and asking for more! I will be making this on a regular basis now. I love your blog, thanks!
[Reply to this comment]
I’m totally making this tonight! It’s one of my first ‘meal-planned’ meals, so I’ve soaked the beans and purchased the right ingredients. I’m planning to mostly puree it, and eat it with “homemade” tortilla chips: tortillas brushed with butter, cut in quarters, and baked (SO good).
Thanks for all the great resources you put out here for us to use!
[Reply to this comment]
Making this to take to some friends of ours who just had a baby. Unfortunately, I can’t have any yet (pregnant and have an aversion to tomatoes…). It sure smells good though!
[Reply to this comment]
I was wondering.. Does this freeze well? Ie. taste as good as it did before frozen?
[Reply to this comment]
Katie Reply:
July 25th, 2011 at 2:42 am
Julia,
Katie
A huge yes and yes! I double and freeze this one OFTEN.
[Reply to this comment]
Just learning to use dry beans. Got some soaking for this soup, but since I bought them in bulk, I don’t have the basic instructions. Is there any way in particular that you usually cook them? I recently cooked some pinto beans and then some kidney beans in the crock pot. They turned out a bit mushy. They made delicious refried beans, but there were really too mushy for much else. I didn’t find any basic instructions on Kitchen Stewardship via the search function. Please point me in the right direction if I’m just missing it. Thanks!
[Reply to this comment]
Just to clarify, my specific questions are:
1. What cooking method?
2. How long?
3. Water to bean ratio?
4. Any additives?
5. Cook in soaking water or fresh water?
6. How long to soak?
7. Any other tips?
Thank you!!!
[Reply to this comment]
Christine Reply:
November 13th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Just found your Bean Manifesto! Not sure why the search didn’t return it, but it’s perfect. Thanks!
[Reply to this comment]
Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship Reply:
November 13th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Glad you found the huge post!
Katie
[Reply to this comment]
Hot School Lunch Ideas + Thermos Giveaway! | Easy. Homemade. // Jan 2, 2013 at 7:19 pm
[...] Black Bean Soup [...]